Okay, I've just ordered the comics that'll arrive in...what, two months time? I can never remember. Anyway, yeah, Civil War is over, and I'm not buying World War Hulk, and I wasn't going to buy Countdown except that I mostly have been.
But following characters is what's going to kill me--between Sinestro Corps stuff and the whole Search for Ray Palmer thing, is there anything that Kyle Rayner isn't in right now?
Friday, August 31, 2007
Idle thoughts on blogging
Just lately, I've been catching up on my blog reading. It's been a few weeks since I actually read everything I know is there to read, and I'm working on it, really I am. So I know that this is really late, but then I'm only skimming the edge of someone else's discussion here so maybe that doesn't matter.
A while back, folks were talking about the increasing number of woman-oriented comic blogs, a number of which focus on hot and/or controversial issues (and therefore tend to evoke some rage among readers and within commentary, as any media would which drew one's attention to hot and/or controversial issues), and the notion that it's harder for those blogs that take a less heated approach to get a hearing in the community.
I will grant you that I am no expert on activism for any cause. And (as you can tell by a brief glance at my blog) I'm a pretty quiet sort. I'm hard to offend. When I am offended I tend to figure that the offense was based on a misunderstanding rather than intent. I honestly assume the best of people. (I'm known for this. I gather that it can be annoying. :)) I don't argue much in real life, and I don't do it online. It's just not in my character.
That doesn't mean that I don't see the point when I read the folks whose focus and approach is different. That I don't see why these folks are angered and outraged, or that I don't think it's justified. Or that I don't appreciate it when someone brings something questionable to my attention, because I do, whether or not I personally agree with their point (sometimes I do, sometimes I don't). That sort of discourse may not be in my own nature, but I have plenty of friends to whom it comes very naturally, and the anger doesn't seem to impede their reasoning one bit.
That's not really what I sat down to write about, though.
The blogging world is a strange place. The term "blog" includes many different sorts of writing. While clearly if you've got a public blog, you're writing (at least on some level) for an outside audience, that doesn't mean that every blogger has the same view of that audience. Some blogs feature writing that's very much aimed at the public, in the same way that a magazine would be. The focus is primarily external from the get-go, and some of these blogs in fact include external material--news or interviews, for example. These blogs tend to be more focused, more reasoned, more fully edited before posting, but can still include some strongly-worded sentiments. A blog of this sort occupies mindfully public space.
Other blogs are really just personal blogs that the writer chooses to share with anyone who may be interested. The focus is primarily internal, and there's a strongly-implied sense of "the opinions expressed herein are strictly the writer's own". The writer is generally happy to have commentary, to enter a discussion with others, but a lot of the time the writing doesn't stand up to harsh critique--and it shouldn't have to. These blogs sometimes include a wide range of topics including personal, diary-like posts. They tend to be more direct, more spontaneous, more from-the-heart. A blog of this sort, while certainly public in the sense that anyone can read it, tends to contain conversations more of the sort you'd have with friends over coffee--potentially insightful, but also to some degree socially-motivated and informal.
And there's nothing wrong with either--I read comic blogs of both sorts regularly. (I'd say that Brainfreeze falls somewhere in between, but is probably a bit closer to the latter in that I don't edit the hell out of what I write here.) I don't think I have the same expectations of both, though. If I know that a blog I read is more of an online diary with some comic content, I'll take that into consideration when evaluating what is said there.
By the way, I'm not trying to be prescriptive here. I'm not saying that anger should be confined to the personal, because I don't believe that. Most blogs are primarily opinion, and angry opinion pieces have been a part of journalism since, well, probably forever.
What I am thinking is that, really, I don't see a lot in the primarily-public blogs that isn't pretty reasonable. If it's an angry post, it's almost always a rationally angry post. I'm wondering where the impression some seem to be under that women blogging about comics are universally rage-wielding harpies comes from, because honestly, I don't see that there.
Now, if you're talking about primarily-personal blogs, then yes, there's more likely to be "bitching and moaning," whatever that may mean :). It's appropriate for that sort of blog. But why would one be assuming things about primarily-public blogs based on what one sees in primarily-personal blogs? The standards of discourse are entirely different.
A while back, folks were talking about the increasing number of woman-oriented comic blogs, a number of which focus on hot and/or controversial issues (and therefore tend to evoke some rage among readers and within commentary, as any media would which drew one's attention to hot and/or controversial issues), and the notion that it's harder for those blogs that take a less heated approach to get a hearing in the community.
I will grant you that I am no expert on activism for any cause. And (as you can tell by a brief glance at my blog) I'm a pretty quiet sort. I'm hard to offend. When I am offended I tend to figure that the offense was based on a misunderstanding rather than intent. I honestly assume the best of people. (I'm known for this. I gather that it can be annoying. :)) I don't argue much in real life, and I don't do it online. It's just not in my character.
That doesn't mean that I don't see the point when I read the folks whose focus and approach is different. That I don't see why these folks are angered and outraged, or that I don't think it's justified. Or that I don't appreciate it when someone brings something questionable to my attention, because I do, whether or not I personally agree with their point (sometimes I do, sometimes I don't). That sort of discourse may not be in my own nature, but I have plenty of friends to whom it comes very naturally, and the anger doesn't seem to impede their reasoning one bit.
That's not really what I sat down to write about, though.
The blogging world is a strange place. The term "blog" includes many different sorts of writing. While clearly if you've got a public blog, you're writing (at least on some level) for an outside audience, that doesn't mean that every blogger has the same view of that audience. Some blogs feature writing that's very much aimed at the public, in the same way that a magazine would be. The focus is primarily external from the get-go, and some of these blogs in fact include external material--news or interviews, for example. These blogs tend to be more focused, more reasoned, more fully edited before posting, but can still include some strongly-worded sentiments. A blog of this sort occupies mindfully public space.
Other blogs are really just personal blogs that the writer chooses to share with anyone who may be interested. The focus is primarily internal, and there's a strongly-implied sense of "the opinions expressed herein are strictly the writer's own". The writer is generally happy to have commentary, to enter a discussion with others, but a lot of the time the writing doesn't stand up to harsh critique--and it shouldn't have to. These blogs sometimes include a wide range of topics including personal, diary-like posts. They tend to be more direct, more spontaneous, more from-the-heart. A blog of this sort, while certainly public in the sense that anyone can read it, tends to contain conversations more of the sort you'd have with friends over coffee--potentially insightful, but also to some degree socially-motivated and informal.
And there's nothing wrong with either--I read comic blogs of both sorts regularly. (I'd say that Brainfreeze falls somewhere in between, but is probably a bit closer to the latter in that I don't edit the hell out of what I write here.) I don't think I have the same expectations of both, though. If I know that a blog I read is more of an online diary with some comic content, I'll take that into consideration when evaluating what is said there.
By the way, I'm not trying to be prescriptive here. I'm not saying that anger should be confined to the personal, because I don't believe that. Most blogs are primarily opinion, and angry opinion pieces have been a part of journalism since, well, probably forever.
What I am thinking is that, really, I don't see a lot in the primarily-public blogs that isn't pretty reasonable. If it's an angry post, it's almost always a rationally angry post. I'm wondering where the impression some seem to be under that women blogging about comics are universally rage-wielding harpies comes from, because honestly, I don't see that there.
Now, if you're talking about primarily-personal blogs, then yes, there's more likely to be "bitching and moaning," whatever that may mean :). It's appropriate for that sort of blog. But why would one be assuming things about primarily-public blogs based on what one sees in primarily-personal blogs? The standards of discourse are entirely different.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Lives of the Lovelorn: Tony Stark and Pepper Potts
I've been putting off trying to write a "Lives of the Lovelorn" about Tony for quite a while, because there's simply too much material there to do it well with any sort of detail. This piece isn't even the entirety of his history with Pepper (or of his Silver Age history with Pepper). But it's what I've got references for on hand, and it includes some telling points about the way Tony views and approaches women, so here it is.
Bruce Wayne may have been billed as "playboy millionaire" but it was Tony Stark who really lived the life. Before the injury that created Iron Man, he was a hell of a man-about-town.
Back when he first became Iron Man--when the Iron Man armor was designed primarily to keep Tony's injured heart alive and beating--Tony had several good reasons not to become seriously involved with any woman--the danger he and anyone he loved would be in, the likelihood of his dying at any moment.
But he still dated--still kept up the playboy identity (I can't really call it a facade). Women in the sixties must have been particularly unobservant, because I know I'd be able to tell if a man I was close-dancing with was wearing inch-thick iron armor under his dress shirt, but as far as I know the issue never came up, and as long as Tony kept his shirt on his secret was safe. But you know, at least early on, I'm not sure how much of what Tony said had to do with his new life and how much was just continuing with the same lines he'd always given to women who wanted to get a little too close.
But that state of affairs was soon to change, with the introduction of secretary Pepper Potts and chauffeur Happy Hogan.
You'll notice that Pepper, stereotypically, has a huge crush on boss Tony. an affection which at this point is not returned.
What you may not notice is that Pepper, in her first and a number of subsequent appeances, is not supposed to be a paticularly attractive woman--she's got her hair up in a bun, has freckles, and wears a schoolmarm's wardrobe, high collar and all.* Tony was not even remotely interested in her.
Not that he was unaware of her interest in him--in fact, he's more than willing to take advantage of it:
Eventually Pepper has had enough of trying to get Tony to notice her--she concludes, rightly enough, that he's never going to pick up on her fine character, sense of humor, strong work ethic, or anything else--and she does what? That's right, she goes to an expert for help--at the beauty salon.
She has apparently gone clothes shopping as well. And it works. Now that she looks more like the glamour girls Tony prefers, he notices her (you'd think she'd just taken off her glasses and undone her hair right in front of him!). Happy, bless him, liked her just fine the way she was.
I can't totally blame Tony for this, though. It was obvious to anyone that he's a pretty shallow guy when it comes to women--Pepper herself picked up on this. The fact that she prefers the man who only likes her when she fits herself to his narrow definition of femininity to the man who likes her just the way she is has to say something about her and her level of self-esteem as well.
And while Pepper may have managed to get Tony to notice her, that's a far cry from actually getting a date with him, and she ends up with Happy in spite of it all, at least for that night.
But Pepper hasn't given up, and pretty soon she's interfering with Tony's other dates.
Tony, however, soon has other distractions--the Black Widow, in her first-ever appearance!
But that doesn't work out so well, and it's not too long before Tony, in spite of himself, is making moves on Pepper, much to Happy's consternation.
At the same time, however, Tony--basically a nice guy who wants the best for his friends--wants to help Happy out.
From now on, Tony's behavior with regard to Pepper follows a certain pattern. First, he realizes that (for the usual reasons) he can never really be with any woman.
He then tries to set her up with Happy.
But he has his doubts, based (at least in part) on his own self-interest.
Once Pepper is with Happy, Tony can't stand to see them together and does something to ruin Happy's chances.
And that's the last of my Iron Man/Pepper Potts resources, so that's the end of this discussion. What's interesting to me is that, even back in the sixties, Tony had a hard time honestly differentiating between his own interests and the greater good. His heart was in the right place--he wanted everyone to be happy--but his own needs tripped him up. I'm not sure that has ever really changed, although I'm sure he can identify more of these issues than he once could, and he may have become more adept at the self-deception. And since the whole Civil War thing is based in part on Tony's perception of what the greater good is, well, that's just interesting, is all. :)
* I know that this can be hard to tell in an older comic. I used to have the same problem with older movies--a woman would come into a scene, dressed in such a way to (back when the film was made) identify her as a loose woman, or a wealthy woman, or a librarian-type, or whatever, and I wouldn't know it because as far as I could tell everyone in the movie was just wearing old-fashioned clothes.
Bruce Wayne may have been billed as "playboy millionaire" but it was Tony Stark who really lived the life. Before the injury that created Iron Man, he was a hell of a man-about-town.
Back when he first became Iron Man--when the Iron Man armor was designed primarily to keep Tony's injured heart alive and beating--Tony had several good reasons not to become seriously involved with any woman--the danger he and anyone he loved would be in, the likelihood of his dying at any moment.
But he still dated--still kept up the playboy identity (I can't really call it a facade). Women in the sixties must have been particularly unobservant, because I know I'd be able to tell if a man I was close-dancing with was wearing inch-thick iron armor under his dress shirt, but as far as I know the issue never came up, and as long as Tony kept his shirt on his secret was safe. But you know, at least early on, I'm not sure how much of what Tony said had to do with his new life and how much was just continuing with the same lines he'd always given to women who wanted to get a little too close.
But that state of affairs was soon to change, with the introduction of secretary Pepper Potts and chauffeur Happy Hogan.
You'll notice that Pepper, stereotypically, has a huge crush on boss Tony. an affection which at this point is not returned.
What you may not notice is that Pepper, in her first and a number of subsequent appeances, is not supposed to be a paticularly attractive woman--she's got her hair up in a bun, has freckles, and wears a schoolmarm's wardrobe, high collar and all.* Tony was not even remotely interested in her.
Not that he was unaware of her interest in him--in fact, he's more than willing to take advantage of it:
Eventually Pepper has had enough of trying to get Tony to notice her--she concludes, rightly enough, that he's never going to pick up on her fine character, sense of humor, strong work ethic, or anything else--and she does what? That's right, she goes to an expert for help--at the beauty salon.
She has apparently gone clothes shopping as well. And it works. Now that she looks more like the glamour girls Tony prefers, he notices her (you'd think she'd just taken off her glasses and undone her hair right in front of him!). Happy, bless him, liked her just fine the way she was.
I can't totally blame Tony for this, though. It was obvious to anyone that he's a pretty shallow guy when it comes to women--Pepper herself picked up on this. The fact that she prefers the man who only likes her when she fits herself to his narrow definition of femininity to the man who likes her just the way she is has to say something about her and her level of self-esteem as well.
And while Pepper may have managed to get Tony to notice her, that's a far cry from actually getting a date with him, and she ends up with Happy in spite of it all, at least for that night.
But Pepper hasn't given up, and pretty soon she's interfering with Tony's other dates.
Tony, however, soon has other distractions--the Black Widow, in her first-ever appearance!
But that doesn't work out so well, and it's not too long before Tony, in spite of himself, is making moves on Pepper, much to Happy's consternation.
At the same time, however, Tony--basically a nice guy who wants the best for his friends--wants to help Happy out.
From now on, Tony's behavior with regard to Pepper follows a certain pattern. First, he realizes that (for the usual reasons) he can never really be with any woman.
He then tries to set her up with Happy.
But he has his doubts, based (at least in part) on his own self-interest.
Once Pepper is with Happy, Tony can't stand to see them together and does something to ruin Happy's chances.
And that's the last of my Iron Man/Pepper Potts resources, so that's the end of this discussion. What's interesting to me is that, even back in the sixties, Tony had a hard time honestly differentiating between his own interests and the greater good. His heart was in the right place--he wanted everyone to be happy--but his own needs tripped him up. I'm not sure that has ever really changed, although I'm sure he can identify more of these issues than he once could, and he may have become more adept at the self-deception. And since the whole Civil War thing is based in part on Tony's perception of what the greater good is, well, that's just interesting, is all. :)
* I know that this can be hard to tell in an older comic. I used to have the same problem with older movies--a woman would come into a scene, dressed in such a way to (back when the film was made) identify her as a loose woman, or a wealthy woman, or a librarian-type, or whatever, and I wouldn't know it because as far as I could tell everyone in the movie was just wearing old-fashioned clothes.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Lives of the Lovelorn: Hawkeye and the Black Widow
Both Clint and Natasha were introduced in the pages of Iron Man (well, Tales of Suspense in those days, which he shared with Captain America), both as villainous (or semi-villainous in the case of Hawkeye) characters.
Tony Stark always was more concerned about the Commies than a lot of Marvel's heroes--he began his Iron Man career in Viet Nam and, since at that time he was primarily a manufacturer of weapons, he had to deal with industrial espionage on top of the usual villainry. That's where the Black Widow came in, a Soviet spy sent to seduce Stark and learn his secrets. She had first gone in alone, and had been less than successful (although not about the seducation, which with Tony was pretty much a given in those days). So when she met Hawkeye and saw in him a potential ally to be used against Stark, she applied her techniques in his direction. Poor guy never had a chance.
Unfortunately for Natasha, she didn't do any better partnered with Hawkeye than she had alone--he took a shot at Iron Man, and his arrow bounced off of the armor and hit her.
Now, Natasha was a communist spy at this point in her career, but Hawkeye was not. In fact, he had taken on a costumed identity in order to fight evil (granted that he was first motivated by jealousy of Iron Man, but still his heart was always in the right place). So she had to convince him that she, as well, was on the side of good. Not that this was difficult, convincing Clint of what he wanted to think anyway...
...but on some level he really did realize what was going on.
At this point their love affair was interrupted, when Natasha--unsuccessful in completing her mission--was taken back to her home base by force.
But as she leaves the scene, the seeds of her eventual redemption are planted--she really does love Hawkeye, after all.
When next we see Natasha, she is in a costume given her by her superiors, who have given her an ultimatum: complete your mission or else.
And we're shown just what "or else" means (and given yet another reason to find her sympathetic).
When she asks him to help her against Iron Man once again, he's still reluctant, but--as usual--it doesn't take much for her to convince him.
However, it also doesn't take much for him to give up on the subsequent battle with Iron Man. He says it's all because he loves her so much, but I'm pretty sure that he didn't mind being given a way out of the fight.
However, Hawkeye's failure to complete his part of the mission apparently caused a break with the Widow, because the next time we see her is in the pages of The Avengers--again as a villainess but with some doubt in her heart.
And new-Avenger Clint also allows his emotions to get the better of him:
But in the end, all was well...
...at least for a while. Oh, sure, there were trust issues:
And, even as a "good guy" Natasha wasn't necessarily going to be Avengers material in that era:
And then there was her career as an agent (double-agent, even!) of SHIELD:
Even after the whole traitor storyline was over, there were issues. Such as the revelation of Natasha's husband:
Eventually, Natasha tried to quit the whole thing.
But that didn't work out so well for her, either.
And eventually she returned to spy work.
(Note that Hawkeye, on the whole, was far cooler about Natasha's SHIELD career than Captain America was about Sharon's.)
But Natasha appeared less and less often in the pages of The Avengers. Eventually the lovers were once again torn apart, and eventually it really would be the end.
The next time we see Natasha, all the years of deception--necessary or not--have come to a head:
I was actually pretty impressed, reading that last comic--published in the mid-1970s, which really takes it out of the Silver Age--that the emotional consequences of typical Silver Age romantic nonsense were being dealt with somewhat realistically--or at all!
I don't think she and Clint ever did discuss the particulars of their relationship (they didn't at that point, in any case), but there is, at least, a sense that there are consequences to actions--to the fact that as a villain she had preyed on the emotions of a needy man, and as a heroine she had treated him inconsistently at best due to her work, and that regardless of motive she had done him some damage and recognized this.
I haven't read the Black Widow mini yet, so I'm not sure how much is different about her current backstory, but--take away the Silver Age soft-focus lens--and here you've got a character who has not only really changed over time, she has become consciously self-aware. I'm not saying that any of that is likely to have stuck, or that she wouldn't make some of the same mistakes again--it's comics, after all, and even in real life habit is hard to break--but that's pretty cool.
Tony Stark always was more concerned about the Commies than a lot of Marvel's heroes--he began his Iron Man career in Viet Nam and, since at that time he was primarily a manufacturer of weapons, he had to deal with industrial espionage on top of the usual villainry. That's where the Black Widow came in, a Soviet spy sent to seduce Stark and learn his secrets. She had first gone in alone, and had been less than successful (although not about the seducation, which with Tony was pretty much a given in those days). So when she met Hawkeye and saw in him a potential ally to be used against Stark, she applied her techniques in his direction. Poor guy never had a chance.
Unfortunately for Natasha, she didn't do any better partnered with Hawkeye than she had alone--he took a shot at Iron Man, and his arrow bounced off of the armor and hit her.
Now, Natasha was a communist spy at this point in her career, but Hawkeye was not. In fact, he had taken on a costumed identity in order to fight evil (granted that he was first motivated by jealousy of Iron Man, but still his heart was always in the right place). So she had to convince him that she, as well, was on the side of good. Not that this was difficult, convincing Clint of what he wanted to think anyway...
...but on some level he really did realize what was going on.
At this point their love affair was interrupted, when Natasha--unsuccessful in completing her mission--was taken back to her home base by force.
But as she leaves the scene, the seeds of her eventual redemption are planted--she really does love Hawkeye, after all.
When next we see Natasha, she is in a costume given her by her superiors, who have given her an ultimatum: complete your mission or else.
And we're shown just what "or else" means (and given yet another reason to find her sympathetic).
When she asks him to help her against Iron Man once again, he's still reluctant, but--as usual--it doesn't take much for her to convince him.
However, it also doesn't take much for him to give up on the subsequent battle with Iron Man. He says it's all because he loves her so much, but I'm pretty sure that he didn't mind being given a way out of the fight.
However, Hawkeye's failure to complete his part of the mission apparently caused a break with the Widow, because the next time we see her is in the pages of The Avengers--again as a villainess but with some doubt in her heart.
And new-Avenger Clint also allows his emotions to get the better of him:
But in the end, all was well...
...at least for a while. Oh, sure, there were trust issues:
And, even as a "good guy" Natasha wasn't necessarily going to be Avengers material in that era:
And then there was her career as an agent (double-agent, even!) of SHIELD:
Even after the whole traitor storyline was over, there were issues. Such as the revelation of Natasha's husband:
Eventually, Natasha tried to quit the whole thing.
But that didn't work out so well for her, either.
And eventually she returned to spy work.
(Note that Hawkeye, on the whole, was far cooler about Natasha's SHIELD career than Captain America was about Sharon's.)
But Natasha appeared less and less often in the pages of The Avengers. Eventually the lovers were once again torn apart, and eventually it really would be the end.
The next time we see Natasha, all the years of deception--necessary or not--have come to a head:
I was actually pretty impressed, reading that last comic--published in the mid-1970s, which really takes it out of the Silver Age--that the emotional consequences of typical Silver Age romantic nonsense were being dealt with somewhat realistically--or at all!
I don't think she and Clint ever did discuss the particulars of their relationship (they didn't at that point, in any case), but there is, at least, a sense that there are consequences to actions--to the fact that as a villain she had preyed on the emotions of a needy man, and as a heroine she had treated him inconsistently at best due to her work, and that regardless of motive she had done him some damage and recognized this.
I haven't read the Black Widow mini yet, so I'm not sure how much is different about her current backstory, but--take away the Silver Age soft-focus lens--and here you've got a character who has not only really changed over time, she has become consciously self-aware. I'm not saying that any of that is likely to have stuck, or that she wouldn't make some of the same mistakes again--it's comics, after all, and even in real life habit is hard to break--but that's pretty cool.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Superhero parents
I've got another confession today.
I'm a mom. I like being a mother. Some of my best friends are mothers.
But I have never been fond of superhero mothers. Or fathers, where they're given a lot of "on screen" parenting time (usually this means single parent or stay-at-home).
This made more sense when I was younger, before I was a parent--in theory I probably wouldn't find superhero parents relatable because I wasn't a parent. But I am a parent now and I still don't find them relatable.
I don't think that I think there's anything wrong with the concept, or that I think that parents shouldn't be superheroes.
But I've never been interested in superhero moms or dads. Sue Richards? Not interesting. Scott Lang? Only potentially interesting when the story isn't Cassie-focused. Black Canary? Interesting until she decided to be more of a mom, then not interesting.
(Please not that I'm not saying that becoming a parent necessarily makes a character less interesting, I'm saying that it makes them less interesting to me. It's a personal thing.)
And it's not because where there are parents, there are children. I have nothing against children (although I'm not much of a "kid person"--I like my own kids, but tend not to seek out other children). I have nothing against children in comics--I like stories about kid heroes well enough. I have an interest in kid sidekicks, although I find that they usually work out better in theory than in presentation, but I expect that that's got more to do with my 21st-century sensibilities (the idea that you just don't intentionally put a child in danger for any reason) than anything else. Although the non-super children of superheroes generally don't interest me much, and they get captured by villains almost as often as sidekicks do.
Okay, that was a detour. Because it's not really the kids. And it's not really the danger to the kids, I'm not that sensitive to fictional emperilment.
But there is a level of responsibility to being a parent that--when I see a superhero parent--sucks the escapism right out of it for me. Some of the "fun" goes away. And it's not the whole "if Captain Blackberry dies, his children will be orphans!" thing. It's that when he gets home from beating on the Evil Horde, he still has to decide what to make for dinner, make dinner, help with homework, bathe the baby, get up at 3 in the morning when the baby comes down with an ear infection, and do all the work for his day job that he missed during the battle.
Sure it's realistic. Sure it's (theoretically) relatable. But I don't particularly want to see it in my comic books.
I'm a mom. I like being a mother. Some of my best friends are mothers.
But I have never been fond of superhero mothers. Or fathers, where they're given a lot of "on screen" parenting time (usually this means single parent or stay-at-home).
This made more sense when I was younger, before I was a parent--in theory I probably wouldn't find superhero parents relatable because I wasn't a parent. But I am a parent now and I still don't find them relatable.
I don't think that I think there's anything wrong with the concept, or that I think that parents shouldn't be superheroes.
But I've never been interested in superhero moms or dads. Sue Richards? Not interesting. Scott Lang? Only potentially interesting when the story isn't Cassie-focused. Black Canary? Interesting until she decided to be more of a mom, then not interesting.
(Please not that I'm not saying that becoming a parent necessarily makes a character less interesting, I'm saying that it makes them less interesting to me. It's a personal thing.)
And it's not because where there are parents, there are children. I have nothing against children (although I'm not much of a "kid person"--I like my own kids, but tend not to seek out other children). I have nothing against children in comics--I like stories about kid heroes well enough. I have an interest in kid sidekicks, although I find that they usually work out better in theory than in presentation, but I expect that that's got more to do with my 21st-century sensibilities (the idea that you just don't intentionally put a child in danger for any reason) than anything else. Although the non-super children of superheroes generally don't interest me much, and they get captured by villains almost as often as sidekicks do.
Okay, that was a detour. Because it's not really the kids. And it's not really the danger to the kids, I'm not that sensitive to fictional emperilment.
But there is a level of responsibility to being a parent that--when I see a superhero parent--sucks the escapism right out of it for me. Some of the "fun" goes away. And it's not the whole "if Captain Blackberry dies, his children will be orphans!" thing. It's that when he gets home from beating on the Evil Horde, he still has to decide what to make for dinner, make dinner, help with homework, bathe the baby, get up at 3 in the morning when the baby comes down with an ear infection, and do all the work for his day job that he missed during the battle.
Sure it's realistic. Sure it's (theoretically) relatable. But I don't particularly want to see it in my comic books.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Who Wants To Be A Superhero, Week Five, Season Two [Spoilers]
I am rapidly running out of things to say about this show. What I will say is that, on the whole, I don't think it's as interesting as the first season. Part of this is that the novelty factor is no longer there, and there's not enough new this season to make up for that. But by this point last time, there were several real stand-out heroes--this season, the only real stand-out is Parthenon, IMO.
I think also that this season I've been really struck by the arbitrariness of Stan's decision-making--obviously there is going to have to be a lot of subjectivity in something like this, but some of his criticisms have seemed out of proportion. I realize that there has to be some uncertainty involved--there wouldn't be much suspense if the contestants (and viewers) could accurately predict what the real challenges were--but some of this has been contradictory, such as Stan praising Hyper-Strike for the same thing that Mindset was censured for earlier (being blunt about a teammate's weaknesses at the risk of hurting their feelings). This was probably the case in first season as well but I don't remember noticing it as often.
This week had Dr. Dark causing power outages. The heroes had to fix the problem, and to do so had to get through a narrow drain pipe filled with snakes and spiders. It was probably a safe bet that at least some of the contestants would have trouble with this task, snakes and spiders being fairly common fears, and some did, but all made it through all right in the end.
After that they were given a night off, a dinner in a Mexican restaurant, where they interacted with the public, inluding children--and had to figure out how to handle it when it turned out that they had no money to pay the bill.
As in the first season, there was a segment where things from the heroes' pasts are revealed, by Dr. Dark of course; however, unlike the first season, none of these things were particularly bad. That was surprising, since on the whole the challenges seem to be a bit edgier than first season's. But Stan really wasn't all that critical of any of the heroes' "dark secrets," which was not the case last year. I think it's likely that--after seeing what happened last season--the contestants asked friends and family to be circumspect about anything they revealed about them to representatives of the show, because there really wasn't much to work with there.
One thing that is new about this season is the mission reports the team has to make about each other. This has the potential for a lot of drama, but the show doesn't really focus on that, for which I'm grateful. It is interesting to hear how the team perceives one another, and it's not always the same way they appear on camera.
This week's elimination was, unsurprisingly, Whip-Snap. She was fairly open about her lack of confidence, which would have been all right if it was something that improved more over time, but in the end it didn't seem to. What we saw last episode, where she was talking about how the situation stressed her, she couldn't do it anymore--that hurt her, I know.
Predictions? My guess, if I were going by just what we've seen so far, would be that Hygena would be the next to go--based on her task performance, which the rest of the team sees as lacking. However, she could certainly redeem herself in next week's show.
I think also that this season I've been really struck by the arbitrariness of Stan's decision-making--obviously there is going to have to be a lot of subjectivity in something like this, but some of his criticisms have seemed out of proportion. I realize that there has to be some uncertainty involved--there wouldn't be much suspense if the contestants (and viewers) could accurately predict what the real challenges were--but some of this has been contradictory, such as Stan praising Hyper-Strike for the same thing that Mindset was censured for earlier (being blunt about a teammate's weaknesses at the risk of hurting their feelings). This was probably the case in first season as well but I don't remember noticing it as often.
This week had Dr. Dark causing power outages. The heroes had to fix the problem, and to do so had to get through a narrow drain pipe filled with snakes and spiders. It was probably a safe bet that at least some of the contestants would have trouble with this task, snakes and spiders being fairly common fears, and some did, but all made it through all right in the end.
After that they were given a night off, a dinner in a Mexican restaurant, where they interacted with the public, inluding children--and had to figure out how to handle it when it turned out that they had no money to pay the bill.
As in the first season, there was a segment where things from the heroes' pasts are revealed, by Dr. Dark of course; however, unlike the first season, none of these things were particularly bad. That was surprising, since on the whole the challenges seem to be a bit edgier than first season's. But Stan really wasn't all that critical of any of the heroes' "dark secrets," which was not the case last year. I think it's likely that--after seeing what happened last season--the contestants asked friends and family to be circumspect about anything they revealed about them to representatives of the show, because there really wasn't much to work with there.
One thing that is new about this season is the mission reports the team has to make about each other. This has the potential for a lot of drama, but the show doesn't really focus on that, for which I'm grateful. It is interesting to hear how the team perceives one another, and it's not always the same way they appear on camera.
This week's elimination was, unsurprisingly, Whip-Snap. She was fairly open about her lack of confidence, which would have been all right if it was something that improved more over time, but in the end it didn't seem to. What we saw last episode, where she was talking about how the situation stressed her, she couldn't do it anymore--that hurt her, I know.
Predictions? My guess, if I were going by just what we've seen so far, would be that Hygena would be the next to go--based on her task performance, which the rest of the team sees as lacking. However, she could certainly redeem herself in next week's show.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
The Can't Wait! List
The comics will be here next week, and this is what I'm most looking forward to, in order:
1. Captain America #29. As almost-always.
2. Green Lantern #22 and Green Lantern Corps #15, as they carry the Sinestro Corps storyline further.
3. Irredeemable Ant-Man #11. Damn, I'll miss this title.
4. All-New Atom #14. You know, I never used to be a big fan of the shrinking hero other than as a part of a team, but here I see two of them on my "Can't Wait!" list.
5. Cable and Deadpool #44. Edging out Birds of Prey for the number five slot because there was a hell of a cliff-hanger last month.
We'll see in a few days whether my predicted fun matches up with my actual fun.
So I'm looking at the above list and noticing that the first two books are there at least in part because of ongoing plot--strong storylines. The rest are books with some humor value. That probably reflects my taste in comics pretty well (and the fact that apparently if a book is funny, I'll judge it less harshly than I will a serious one).
I'm also wondering if I lose any woman-comic-blogger cred because none of the books on the list are female-focused. Well, BoP almost made it, but the only other books on my list this month are She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel, and neither of them is edge-of-the-seat stuff lately. I sill enjoy them--wouldn't get them otherwise--but I can't honestly put them on the Can't Wait! list.
1. Captain America #29. As almost-always.
2. Green Lantern #22 and Green Lantern Corps #15, as they carry the Sinestro Corps storyline further.
3. Irredeemable Ant-Man #11. Damn, I'll miss this title.
4. All-New Atom #14. You know, I never used to be a big fan of the shrinking hero other than as a part of a team, but here I see two of them on my "Can't Wait!" list.
5. Cable and Deadpool #44. Edging out Birds of Prey for the number five slot because there was a hell of a cliff-hanger last month.
We'll see in a few days whether my predicted fun matches up with my actual fun.
So I'm looking at the above list and noticing that the first two books are there at least in part because of ongoing plot--strong storylines. The rest are books with some humor value. That probably reflects my taste in comics pretty well (and the fact that apparently if a book is funny, I'll judge it less harshly than I will a serious one).
I'm also wondering if I lose any woman-comic-blogger cred because none of the books on the list are female-focused. Well, BoP almost made it, but the only other books on my list this month are She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel, and neither of them is edge-of-the-seat stuff lately. I sill enjoy them--wouldn't get them otherwise--but I can't honestly put them on the Can't Wait! list.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Everlasting Love in Comics
There are romantic pairings in comics that just seem right. That are more-or-less permanent regardless of who is writing. That are an established and essential part of the canon of a particular character or characters. That comic readers automatically think of as a couple. That comic writers who want to get "back to basics" will go through hell or high water to maintain or--if another writer has moved the characters on--to reestablish.
Superman and Lois Lane? Most (possibly excepting Lana Lang) would agree that they belong together. Superman has had other women in his life, but Lois has always been the sun he revolves around. No other woman ever really stood a chance.
Spider-Man and Mary Jane? A good couple, but not the couple. Not that there's anything wrong with their relationship, but Spidey had an equally strong bond with Gwen Stacy (and possibly with other women as well, I have no idea because I don't read Spider-Man--I just know that Gwen is often cited as his "real" true love). MJ is not the Lois to his Superman.
How do you know if a couple is "must-have"? Do you always think of the two together? Is it almost impossible to think of either party with another character? Do other attempted pairings with either tend not to stick? This is all subjective and can vary a lot depending on the reader (or the writer), but if there's a general consensus in favor of a particular relationship, you might have a must-have relationship.
What does make a must-have comic couple?
Simple tradition seems to play a big part in it. (What else would explain the whole Green Arrow/Black Canary thing?) I don't know whether Lois has been a part of the Superman mythos from his very first appearance, but she's certainly been a part of it for the last fifty or sixty years. If a hero has been connected to a particular individual and no other for years, readers are going to remember that, and keep that relationship in mind as something associated with that hero.
Similarly, the Legion of Superheroes in the sixties and seventies (and to some extent into the eighties), being a very large team with an unusually large number of female characters, had a strong tendency to "couple up" the membership--Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad, Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel, Cosmic Boy and Night Girl, Dream Girl and Star Boy--it's very hard to readjust your mind to new pairings when you've got thirty years of that in your head, and the future stories Silver Age DC was so fond of (or were they make-believe stories?) of an adult Legion just established these associations more strongly.
The characterization of the hero also seems to play a factor. Some heroes just operate better as loners, romantically speaking. Superman has Lois, but Batman has had a series of loves over the years--of course, what woman could compete with Gotham? In fact, billionaire playboys in general tend not to have a single partner; Tony Stark had Pepper Potts in the "true love he could never have" role for a while in the sixties, and she (along with late husband Happy Hogan) have made a number of appearances over the years when writers have wanted to bring Tony back to his roots, but on the whole I think that boat has sailed.
Having been created as a pair, or paired very early on, can help. Reed and Sue Richards are a must-have couple, although they might not have been if they hadn't married and had children. (IMO Sue without Reed seems to work better than Reed without Sue.)
And speaking of the Fantastic Four, apparently Ben Grimm and Alicia Masters are considered a must-have couple as well, to the point where, when one writer had separated them, marrying Alicia to Johnny Storm in an apparently-successful marriage, subsequent writers had to find a way to make Alicia available for Ben again. They did this by turning her into a Skrull--Lyja, remember?--Skrulls being as handy a plot device twenty years ago as they are today. Not every subsequent writer has felt the need to pair up Alicia and Ben, but the relationship does tend to be revived every so often.
The success of the relationship--whether it was a happy partnership--doesn't seem to be essential to whether a couple is must-have. Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne? Well, Hank as Ant-Man preceded Jan as the Wasp, but only by a short period of time, and they were partnered heroically (and, mostly, romantically) for many years. Opinion seems to vary on this couple--on the one hand, it doesn't seem to have been a very good relationship (whether or not you buy into the long-term abuse theory). On the other, there are a number of comic writers who really like to bring things back to the original status quo, and Hank and Jan have revived their relationship every so often over the years. Certainly neither has successfully established a new relationship with anybody else.
Years ago I would have called the Vision and the Scarlet Witch one of the most must-have couples in the Marvel universe, and look what happened there (or don't, it wasn't very pretty). I still maintain that they had, for a while, one of the coolest relationships in comicdom. Wanda's later romantic bond with Wonder Man, while interesting, never had the sense of permanence of her love of the Vision.
And actual separation doesn't necessarily break apart the couple--Scott Summers will always be associated with Jean Grey more than with any other woman he becomes involved with (sorry, Emma).
I'm not saying that this sort of perceived "rightness" is a good thing.
It is good to have a respect for comic history, and I'm the last one to complain about the nostalgic impulse. I'm a sucker for Golden Age reprints, and I'll at least have a look at anything bringing Golden Age characters into the present day.
But some excellent stories have involved breaking with the status quo--the whole Winter Soldier thing in Captain America, for example. And while Sharon Carter has returned as Cap's most recent love interest, this time around their pairing was not presented as either being "the only one" for the other, and there's a lot more going on with Sharon these days than simple "love interest." (Personally I still retain a fondness for Bernie Rosenthal, one of my all-time favorite "Cap women.")
And some pretty awful stories have been created in the service of bringing together a writer's (or editor's) favorite must-have couple--existing relationships broken up clumsily, existing romantic partners mischaracterized or abused, significant romantic history changed and past partners minimized or demonized (Nightwing and Starfire, anyone?).
I love the convoluted history of the comic universe--there's a richness to it that adds an extra dimension to my appreciation of the medium. But I don't believe that everything from the past needs to be preserved. I don't believe that, at the end of the story arc, all things need to return to "normal." But I also don't favor change for its own sake, simply to shake things up--if there's no narrative benefit to it, why do it? *
* It's got to be a difficult balancing act for the writers--trying to establish new and interesting directions for a book while still retaining whatever it is that defines the book's identity. (I know I wouldn't want the job.) If a major change is to be made--if something is taken away--you need to give the reader something of equivalent value and interest to replace it. For example, taking away Captain America, but only after providing a strong supporting cast that can carry the book for a while.
Superman and Lois Lane? Most (possibly excepting Lana Lang) would agree that they belong together. Superman has had other women in his life, but Lois has always been the sun he revolves around. No other woman ever really stood a chance.
Spider-Man and Mary Jane? A good couple, but not the couple. Not that there's anything wrong with their relationship, but Spidey had an equally strong bond with Gwen Stacy (and possibly with other women as well, I have no idea because I don't read Spider-Man--I just know that Gwen is often cited as his "real" true love). MJ is not the Lois to his Superman.
How do you know if a couple is "must-have"? Do you always think of the two together? Is it almost impossible to think of either party with another character? Do other attempted pairings with either tend not to stick? This is all subjective and can vary a lot depending on the reader (or the writer), but if there's a general consensus in favor of a particular relationship, you might have a must-have relationship.
What does make a must-have comic couple?
Simple tradition seems to play a big part in it. (What else would explain the whole Green Arrow/Black Canary thing?) I don't know whether Lois has been a part of the Superman mythos from his very first appearance, but she's certainly been a part of it for the last fifty or sixty years. If a hero has been connected to a particular individual and no other for years, readers are going to remember that, and keep that relationship in mind as something associated with that hero.
Similarly, the Legion of Superheroes in the sixties and seventies (and to some extent into the eighties), being a very large team with an unusually large number of female characters, had a strong tendency to "couple up" the membership--Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad, Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel, Cosmic Boy and Night Girl, Dream Girl and Star Boy--it's very hard to readjust your mind to new pairings when you've got thirty years of that in your head, and the future stories Silver Age DC was so fond of (or were they make-believe stories?) of an adult Legion just established these associations more strongly.
The characterization of the hero also seems to play a factor. Some heroes just operate better as loners, romantically speaking. Superman has Lois, but Batman has had a series of loves over the years--of course, what woman could compete with Gotham? In fact, billionaire playboys in general tend not to have a single partner; Tony Stark had Pepper Potts in the "true love he could never have" role for a while in the sixties, and she (along with late husband Happy Hogan) have made a number of appearances over the years when writers have wanted to bring Tony back to his roots, but on the whole I think that boat has sailed.
Having been created as a pair, or paired very early on, can help. Reed and Sue Richards are a must-have couple, although they might not have been if they hadn't married and had children. (IMO Sue without Reed seems to work better than Reed without Sue.)
And speaking of the Fantastic Four, apparently Ben Grimm and Alicia Masters are considered a must-have couple as well, to the point where, when one writer had separated them, marrying Alicia to Johnny Storm in an apparently-successful marriage, subsequent writers had to find a way to make Alicia available for Ben again. They did this by turning her into a Skrull--Lyja, remember?--Skrulls being as handy a plot device twenty years ago as they are today. Not every subsequent writer has felt the need to pair up Alicia and Ben, but the relationship does tend to be revived every so often.
The success of the relationship--whether it was a happy partnership--doesn't seem to be essential to whether a couple is must-have. Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne? Well, Hank as Ant-Man preceded Jan as the Wasp, but only by a short period of time, and they were partnered heroically (and, mostly, romantically) for many years. Opinion seems to vary on this couple--on the one hand, it doesn't seem to have been a very good relationship (whether or not you buy into the long-term abuse theory). On the other, there are a number of comic writers who really like to bring things back to the original status quo, and Hank and Jan have revived their relationship every so often over the years. Certainly neither has successfully established a new relationship with anybody else.
Years ago I would have called the Vision and the Scarlet Witch one of the most must-have couples in the Marvel universe, and look what happened there (or don't, it wasn't very pretty). I still maintain that they had, for a while, one of the coolest relationships in comicdom. Wanda's later romantic bond with Wonder Man, while interesting, never had the sense of permanence of her love of the Vision.
And actual separation doesn't necessarily break apart the couple--Scott Summers will always be associated with Jean Grey more than with any other woman he becomes involved with (sorry, Emma).
I'm not saying that this sort of perceived "rightness" is a good thing.
It is good to have a respect for comic history, and I'm the last one to complain about the nostalgic impulse. I'm a sucker for Golden Age reprints, and I'll at least have a look at anything bringing Golden Age characters into the present day.
But some excellent stories have involved breaking with the status quo--the whole Winter Soldier thing in Captain America, for example. And while Sharon Carter has returned as Cap's most recent love interest, this time around their pairing was not presented as either being "the only one" for the other, and there's a lot more going on with Sharon these days than simple "love interest." (Personally I still retain a fondness for Bernie Rosenthal, one of my all-time favorite "Cap women.")
And some pretty awful stories have been created in the service of bringing together a writer's (or editor's) favorite must-have couple--existing relationships broken up clumsily, existing romantic partners mischaracterized or abused, significant romantic history changed and past partners minimized or demonized (Nightwing and Starfire, anyone?).
I love the convoluted history of the comic universe--there's a richness to it that adds an extra dimension to my appreciation of the medium. But I don't believe that everything from the past needs to be preserved. I don't believe that, at the end of the story arc, all things need to return to "normal." But I also don't favor change for its own sake, simply to shake things up--if there's no narrative benefit to it, why do it? *
* It's got to be a difficult balancing act for the writers--trying to establish new and interesting directions for a book while still retaining whatever it is that defines the book's identity. (I know I wouldn't want the job.) If a major change is to be made--if something is taken away--you need to give the reader something of equivalent value and interest to replace it. For example, taking away Captain America, but only after providing a strong supporting cast that can carry the book for a while.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Super-commercial!
Today was back-to-school shopping day, and although neither of my daughters is particularly a Supergirl fan, both came home with Supergirl merchandise.
The eight-year-old has a Supergirl backpack. It is pink and has many flowers. The eight-year-old considers this a plus--Supergirl and pink and flowers makes her happy.
The twelve-year-old has a Supergirl t-shirt. Oddly, it is green. but the logo is pink, there are again flowers, and it says "Supergirl saves the world 24/7." It's actually pretty cool. :)
The eight-year-old has a Supergirl backpack. It is pink and has many flowers. The eight-year-old considers this a plus--Supergirl and pink and flowers makes her happy.
The twelve-year-old has a Supergirl t-shirt. Oddly, it is green. but the logo is pink, there are again flowers, and it says "Supergirl saves the world 24/7." It's actually pretty cool. :)
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Silver Age Soap: Captain America
People say that in the past, comic book heroes were more stoic, solid heroic types who never let their personal problems get the better of them. They say that modern heroes are too prone to letting their emotions take over, to whining and moaning about every little thing. Possibly this is true if you're comparing today's comics to those of sixty years ago. However, forty years ago, during the Silver Age, heroes had plenty of drama, and many moments of anguished self-absorption. And Marvel's Stan Lee was the master of this Silver Age angst.
And no one had more of it than Captain America. First came Stan's decision to retroactively kill off sidekick Bucky, which led not only to guilt but to the constant fear of losing anyone else he might grow close to, particularly girlfriend Sharon Carter and new teenage sometime-partner Rick Jones. Add to that all the "man out of time" issues and a certain amount of normal trauma related to war memories, and Cap was a great candidate for any number of angst-laden monologues.
The biggest source of angst for Cap in the Silver Age, as indeed for Cap throughout most of his post-revival career, was of course the death of Bucky. And if Cap wasn't miserable enough due to his own obsessive thoughts, there were always plenty of opportunities to be reminded of it. For example, the many miles of newsreel footage featuring Cap and Bucky in action during the war.
And then there were the nightmares.
It didn't help much that Rick Jones was itching to take on the sidekick role. For a long time, Cap refused to let him wear the costume, although he did accompany him on a number of missions in civilian clothing. Here we see Rick giving Cap a piece of his mind, in an unusually astute analysis:
After this, Cap finally allowed Rick to don the costume and join him as a full partner, at least for a while.
Oh, I do have to mention that this wasn't the first time Rick tried this little trick. Several years earlier, in a remarkably similar scene, Rick had done exactly the same thing. Unfortunately for him, that time he wasn't quite as prepared for Cap's reaction.
When it wasn't Bucky (and, by extension, Rick) on his mind, Cap would worry about the safety of SHIELD-agent girlfriend Sharon.
And, just for a little variety, he would occasionally just angst about his place (or lack of one) in the modern era:
Yep, Silver Age Cap was seriously messed up. He did mellow some over time, and has by now regained a fair amount of his Golden Age stoicism. (Or had, before his recent death.) However, he still hadn't managed to solve what he knew even then was one of his biggest problems:
And no one had more of it than Captain America. First came Stan's decision to retroactively kill off sidekick Bucky, which led not only to guilt but to the constant fear of losing anyone else he might grow close to, particularly girlfriend Sharon Carter and new teenage sometime-partner Rick Jones. Add to that all the "man out of time" issues and a certain amount of normal trauma related to war memories, and Cap was a great candidate for any number of angst-laden monologues.
The biggest source of angst for Cap in the Silver Age, as indeed for Cap throughout most of his post-revival career, was of course the death of Bucky. And if Cap wasn't miserable enough due to his own obsessive thoughts, there were always plenty of opportunities to be reminded of it. For example, the many miles of newsreel footage featuring Cap and Bucky in action during the war.
And then there were the nightmares.
It didn't help much that Rick Jones was itching to take on the sidekick role. For a long time, Cap refused to let him wear the costume, although he did accompany him on a number of missions in civilian clothing. Here we see Rick giving Cap a piece of his mind, in an unusually astute analysis:
After this, Cap finally allowed Rick to don the costume and join him as a full partner, at least for a while.
Oh, I do have to mention that this wasn't the first time Rick tried this little trick. Several years earlier, in a remarkably similar scene, Rick had done exactly the same thing. Unfortunately for him, that time he wasn't quite as prepared for Cap's reaction.
When it wasn't Bucky (and, by extension, Rick) on his mind, Cap would worry about the safety of SHIELD-agent girlfriend Sharon.
And, just for a little variety, he would occasionally just angst about his place (or lack of one) in the modern era:
Yep, Silver Age Cap was seriously messed up. He did mellow some over time, and has by now regained a fair amount of his Golden Age stoicism. (Or had, before his recent death.) However, he still hadn't managed to solve what he knew even then was one of his biggest problems:
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Oooh, cool!
An interview with Alex Ross about a new miniseries, Avengers/Invaders. After reading this, I am totally looking forward to seeing the youthful Submariner here.
So, something else to keep an eye out for when I'm ordering my comics.
Oh, and remember when I was talking about not minding dead comic characters being brought back to life? Here's a quote from the interview with Ross that relates to that:
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Beautifully put.
So, something else to keep an eye out for when I'm ordering my comics.
Oh, and remember when I was talking about not minding dead comic characters being brought back to life? Here's a quote from the interview with Ross that relates to that:
That's the thing I hate about a lot of deaths in comic book publishing. I understand the drama related to some of those deaths, but in the real world we cannot control life and it's this fragile thing we loose so often. When you have a fictional world where all these toys in the toy box can be played with, why in the world would you limit yourself? Certainly we can create metaphors for the cruelty and sadness of the real world, but we don't always have to do it with icons there is great attachment to. If you can keep Clark Kent working at the Daily Planet for close to 70 years, then you can keep other likewise characters timeless and, honestly, in many ways, generations of people tied into the same communal source of entertainment.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Beautifully put.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Lives of the Lovelorn: Sharon Carter and Captain America, The First Time Around
Back in the Silver Age, Captain America emerged from his long frozen nap, a man out of time. When he came upon a woman who looked very much like the woman he had been in love with during World War II (less than twenty years earlier at that point), was it surprising that he fell for her as well?
Surprising, no. Kind of creepy, yes. Particularly when it turned out that the reason this girl looked so much like the girl Cap had loved was because she was her younger sister. (I'm not sure whether the current situation, with Sharon falling for her great-aunt's boyfriend, is more or less creepy. About the same, I think.)
They say the course of true love never runs smoothly, and it certainly doesn't for Cap and Sharon. Cap, of course, is a superhero and an Avenger, and Sharon is one of SHIELD's top agents. In other words, neither of them has much time off and when they do it rarely occurs at the same time. Add to that the fact that Cap isn't happy about Sharon's career in the first place, and conflict is inevitable.
It does seem, today, as if Cap--who seemed to adjust pretty easily to most aspects of modern life--was stuck in the 40s when it came to women, or at least to his woman. That's something that's hard to adjust for when you take into account the sliding timeline that now places his revival sometime in the 90s (not his actions so much as her reactions) and it's hard to see a hero, the best hero according to many, acting in such a sexist manner, regardless of his background. It's actually not that hard to explain, though--he reacts at first in about the same way to threats to Rick Jones as he does to threats against Sharon, and I think it's fair to say that it's not so much a native sexism at work as it is a fear of losing someone close to him again, particularly (as in the case of the teenage Rick who reminds him so much of Bucky--you know, Steve does seem to connect most intensely in the modern world with those who resemble the people he was close to in the past, there's probably something to look at there) someone he feels a responsibility for. There is surely some residual 40s state of mind at work here as well, but there's more to it than that.
In any case, Steve moves quickly when it comes to romance. Here he is on his first real date with Sharon. He doesn't even know her real name at this point.
Steve takes her refusal hard. So hard that he decides to retire as Captain America. Sharon is not thrilled about this (nor is anyone else) but it has no effect on her devotion to duty.
They go back and forth like this for some time, with Cap not developing much of a tolerance for Sharon's career during this time period. In case there was any question about his feelings on the subject:
Occasionally he seems to be more accepting of her work and the danger it puts her in.
But it doesn't last long, and pretty soon he's making unreasonable requests again.
You'll notice that in that last scene, he has obviously gotten over his generalized fear of losing someone close to him--he has taken the teenaged Rick Jones on as a partner--so at this point you can really only call it sexism.
And then there's this:
Have I mentioned that, even in the 60s, Nick Fury was awesome? Well, apart from the clear implication that if Sharon was married she would automatically quit her job at SHIELD... but other than that, pure awesome.
So anyway, Cap is getting nowhere trying to convince Sharon to quit her job, so what does he do? He goes to her boss!
Fury is a pragmatist. Sharon may be one of his top agents, but losing the use of Captain America for SHIELD missions--that's a threat he can't ignore. To his credit, he plans to leave it up to Sharon.
Cap, however, presents it to her as if it were a done deal. And in one of the most WTF things I've ever seen in even a Silver Age comic, Sharon not only agrees to this, she seems happy about it. Possibly she's just been worn down by Steve's constant nagging. But this one panel goes against just about every bit of Sharon characterization ever since she was introduced.
Apparently Sharon had every intention of sticking to the desk job thing. But, this being comics, it wasn't going to happen. Once Fury and Cap had both gone on their various missions, a message came in warning Cap of a trap. Since apparently neither of them thought to bring a phone, Sharon had to go warn him in person, which she did, getting into yet another dangerous situation in the process. And--this being comics--this led to a misunderstanding, where Cap is convinced that neither Fury nor Sharon had any intention of her taking that desk job and walks off in a pouty huff.
And that's the end of the road, at least as far as I know from Marvel Essentials. I know that they continued to have an off and on relationship. I know that, inevitably, Sharon never did quit SHIELD or give up the dangerous missions, and that eventually Cap (and new writers) came to accept this. But I don't have those stories to refer to, so we're just going to leave it here for now, with Cap being a big jerk and Sharon trying her best to accommodate him.
Surprising, no. Kind of creepy, yes. Particularly when it turned out that the reason this girl looked so much like the girl Cap had loved was because she was her younger sister. (I'm not sure whether the current situation, with Sharon falling for her great-aunt's boyfriend, is more or less creepy. About the same, I think.)
They say the course of true love never runs smoothly, and it certainly doesn't for Cap and Sharon. Cap, of course, is a superhero and an Avenger, and Sharon is one of SHIELD's top agents. In other words, neither of them has much time off and when they do it rarely occurs at the same time. Add to that the fact that Cap isn't happy about Sharon's career in the first place, and conflict is inevitable.
It does seem, today, as if Cap--who seemed to adjust pretty easily to most aspects of modern life--was stuck in the 40s when it came to women, or at least to his woman. That's something that's hard to adjust for when you take into account the sliding timeline that now places his revival sometime in the 90s (not his actions so much as her reactions) and it's hard to see a hero, the best hero according to many, acting in such a sexist manner, regardless of his background. It's actually not that hard to explain, though--he reacts at first in about the same way to threats to Rick Jones as he does to threats against Sharon, and I think it's fair to say that it's not so much a native sexism at work as it is a fear of losing someone close to him again, particularly (as in the case of the teenage Rick who reminds him so much of Bucky--you know, Steve does seem to connect most intensely in the modern world with those who resemble the people he was close to in the past, there's probably something to look at there) someone he feels a responsibility for. There is surely some residual 40s state of mind at work here as well, but there's more to it than that.
In any case, Steve moves quickly when it comes to romance. Here he is on his first real date with Sharon. He doesn't even know her real name at this point.
Steve takes her refusal hard. So hard that he decides to retire as Captain America. Sharon is not thrilled about this (nor is anyone else) but it has no effect on her devotion to duty.
They go back and forth like this for some time, with Cap not developing much of a tolerance for Sharon's career during this time period. In case there was any question about his feelings on the subject:
Occasionally he seems to be more accepting of her work and the danger it puts her in.
But it doesn't last long, and pretty soon he's making unreasonable requests again.
You'll notice that in that last scene, he has obviously gotten over his generalized fear of losing someone close to him--he has taken the teenaged Rick Jones on as a partner--so at this point you can really only call it sexism.
And then there's this:
Have I mentioned that, even in the 60s, Nick Fury was awesome? Well, apart from the clear implication that if Sharon was married she would automatically quit her job at SHIELD... but other than that, pure awesome.
So anyway, Cap is getting nowhere trying to convince Sharon to quit her job, so what does he do? He goes to her boss!
Fury is a pragmatist. Sharon may be one of his top agents, but losing the use of Captain America for SHIELD missions--that's a threat he can't ignore. To his credit, he plans to leave it up to Sharon.
Cap, however, presents it to her as if it were a done deal. And in one of the most WTF things I've ever seen in even a Silver Age comic, Sharon not only agrees to this, she seems happy about it. Possibly she's just been worn down by Steve's constant nagging. But this one panel goes against just about every bit of Sharon characterization ever since she was introduced.
Apparently Sharon had every intention of sticking to the desk job thing. But, this being comics, it wasn't going to happen. Once Fury and Cap had both gone on their various missions, a message came in warning Cap of a trap. Since apparently neither of them thought to bring a phone, Sharon had to go warn him in person, which she did, getting into yet another dangerous situation in the process. And--this being comics--this led to a misunderstanding, where Cap is convinced that neither Fury nor Sharon had any intention of her taking that desk job and walks off in a pouty huff.
And that's the end of the road, at least as far as I know from Marvel Essentials. I know that they continued to have an off and on relationship. I know that, inevitably, Sharon never did quit SHIELD or give up the dangerous missions, and that eventually Cap (and new writers) came to accept this. But I don't have those stories to refer to, so we're just going to leave it here for now, with Cap being a big jerk and Sharon trying her best to accommodate him.
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